1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for press-installing wires into receiver terminals on a joint block used in wiring the electric circuits in automobiles and also to a method of selecting wires to be press-installed on the joint block.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The joint block is designed to simplify wiring configurations by collectively forming the joints of a wiring harness in one block. A general construction of the joint block is shown in FIG. 6.
A plurality of rows of receiver terminals 3 are inserted through a base 2 of the joint block 1 at specified pitches P, and wires W are pressed into slots 4 in the terminals 3. The wire installation in the terminals 3 is done by manually operating the wire press-installing apparatus. That is, a ram attached with a wire press-installing blade is vertically moved to push one wire W into a row of receiver terminals 3 at one time. The wires used are rated wires that are classified by the conductor diameters, color of insulations, presence or absence of stripes marked on insulations, and the number of stripes, these parameters varying according to the dimensions of receiver terminals 3 and the wiring routes of the wiring harness. Wire seating is successively performed beginning with the terminal row A.sub.1 at one end of the joint block toward the terminal row A.sub.n at the other end. Each of the terminal rows is assigned a predetermined kind of wires (these kinds of wires may or may not be the same).
At each end of the joint block 1, there are formed a recess 5 and a plurality of wire positioning grooves 6, the recess 5 being adapted to prevent the seated wires W from being pulled out in lateral directions, the wire positioning grooves 6 being located corresponding to multiple rows of terminals A.sub.1, A.sub.2, . . . , A.sub.n. A cover 7 with projections 8 is placed on the joint block 1 so as to clamp the seated wires W between the recesses 5 and the projections 8.
In the conventional wire press-installing work, an operator feeds the joint block one pitch at a time, with the wire press-installing blade facing the joint block. This method has the following drawbacks. That is, the work efficiency is low and there is a possibility that the operator may inadvertently skip terminal rows without seating wires on them. In addition, erroneous wiring may occur in which wrong wires are seated in unintended terminal rows.